


Nobody But You

by watermelonsuit



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Biting, Bloodplay, Elim Garak Has Issues, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon Cardassia, References to Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:14:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7481922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watermelonsuit/pseuds/watermelonsuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian Bashir arrives on Cardassia to rebuild what once was. He can't help all Cardassia, of course, certainly not in his first day, but there is one person—</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nobody But You

It's been a stifling morning aboard a Cardassian shuttle with faulty life support systems, and Julian is grateful the afternoon here isn't much hotter. He greets Garak at the shuttle docks and he's still a little disoriented, both by the trip and Garak's silence on the walk home. Julian knows better than to ask why they're walking from the shuttle: there isn't much in the way of transportation, and Garak hasn't told him where he lives. Julian doubts he would, at any rate. The places they pass change: by the hospital (obvious that it became one only during the attacks) there are encampments surrounding partial buildings. Past encampments, rubble, then houses: partially rebuilt houses with families, calling children in the dusk back inside.

Julian winces at the blister forming at the back of his heel, and almost immediately Garak turns back and extends his hand. Julian takes it and bears up a little.

"Here we are," Garak says at last, without fanfare. He's the first to move and enters, leaving the door open for Julian in the windless afternoon. The light inside is low, silvery in Garak's eyes as he turns on an emergency lamp by the door. He looks to the threshold, awaiting reaction from Julian.

Julian searches for neutral words. "It's not what I expected."

"Nor what I expected." Garak smiles. "Come in."

Like so many the buildings still in place on Cardassia, this one's been bombed out and rebuilt. It still has the debris. There's a dark room or two down an empty hallway somewhat intact, and in the main room, where Garak has set up a replicator and a small heat stove in one corner, the walls are still bare, looted maybe. But there are signs of life: that new, Federation-supplied replicator; a pot of soil by the window with seedlings; chairs arranged in an unusually intimate circle. Garak hasn't banished the emptiness and waste, he's made a life alongside them. He's moving about the kitchen now, peering at the tiny leaves growing in the window, rummaging through cabinets.

"An early shuttle and all that packing the night before?" Garak tsks. "You must be starving."

"Actually," Julian says with mock indignation, "I packed in an orderly fashion _two_ nights before. And I'll be fine with whatever you and the replicator feel up to."

"I had planned to make something for us."

"Can I help?"

"Absolutely not. You've had enough trials for one day." Garak looks over to him, a little concerned. "Tea in the meantime?"

"Thanks."

Garak smiles, and takes a spoonful of loose tea from a small jar. Julian notices it's one of only a few unreplicated things in the kitchen. Real red leaf tea. No way of knowing what he did to obtain it, what price he paid on this scorched planet, or what plot he'd taken part in for it. Possible, even, that it was a gift. Garak is gazing into the tea he's pouring now with quiet ardor, but for who or what, exactly, Julian doesn't know. 

"Thank you," he says, and accepts the mug Garak offers. The tea is scalding, strong. Julian's eyes water conspicuously. _You're tired. There's dust everywhere. The tea is hot_ , he reminds himself. He tries to find something kind to say, something that can make up for the day so far. _The tea is too hot. For God's sake, don't say that._

"Um..." Julian searches for something to say. "I really do feel better. By tomorrow I’ll be fully recovered and ready to help."

"Help?" A curious laugh from Garak. "Of course."

"Not so much all of  _Cardassia_ , I mean. You." That sounds worse somehow, much worse.

"Me? Is that what you gleaned from my letters?"

Julian is silent. 

Garak tsks. "You should have known better, my dear."

"I'm... I haven't been a very good guest so far."

"Doctor, you've been a perfect disgrace." Garak says. "I didn't invite you here to be helpful or honest; you know what I think of your 'helpfulness' and I have enough honesty on my hands as it is." He catches Julian's watery eyes. "It's been quite a morning for you, perhaps you should rest."

"No, I'm fine. This is very good. It's the first nice thing I've had in weeks." Julian wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, _damn it_.

Garak smiles again, hardly mysterious and almost sweet. "I thought you might enjoy it. But you still devour your food and drink as though you're starving to death." Julian's expression falls and Garak’s affection leaves his voice, now quiet. "And no, we're not all starving on Cardassia, thanks to the Federation."

Julian shuffles. "So this is the outcome of most 'real' ingredients you have?"

"The replicator doesn't do a very good impression of tea. Its interpretations of most Cardassian dishes are rather disagreeable."

"Oh, Garak! If I'd known—"

"You would have brought a province's worth of food. Spare me."

Julian traces the handle of his mug. "You don't want charity. Got it."

"I depend on it, my dear," Garak says. "You'll find the replicator has many leftover ideas about Human dishes, I'm sure an ambitious young man like yourself can perfect them."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Experiment and endure. The yamok sauce after a number of trials has improved."

"Ah, the famous house yamok sauce. Elim Garak's very own recipe." Julian teases, and sets his mug aside.

"A tricky thing to perfect, you know." Garak’s arm encircles Julian's waist, pulling him forward. "Taste is key." He studies Julian's mouth with a quirked eyeridge before Julian leans to kiss him, soft, a hint of red leaf tartness. "More than satisfactory," Garak murmurs. 

***

They spend two hours experimenting with lunch, and former Human brunches from the station. Garak still has his version of a mimosa when they've made their way outside, through a passage Julian swears is meant to be a secret one. It turns out there's a small garden, with the memorials Garak wrote about rising into the dusty air. They don't look as stark as Julian had imagined, once: there's pride and grief written into them, they admit what Garak hasn't to Julian and perhaps never will.

The dust is thick in the air, but Garak insists that it's a bright, wonderful day, and that in this unfamiliar heat, Julian has to wear a less-than-wonderful hat with a floppy brim.

Julian adjusts the hat and his padd. He's trying to be careful, but his elbow hits the wrong angle of the severe Cardassian version of a lounge chair. He finally pushes the hat off entirely, squinting.

"You space people. Can't appreciate a clear day outside," Garak says, and excavates himself from a similarly brutal chair. On his way back inside with his empty glass, he picks up the hat and plops it back on Julian's head.

"I don't appreciate this hat!"

Garak tsks again and pats the top of Julian’s hat as he returns. 

"What kind of immersion program are you running?"

"A Cardassian one. Keep that on."

Julian pulls the hat over his face completely.

"It's a very nice day, Doctor, although perhaps not by your homeworld's standards. Peaceful. No one around to interrupt your reading." Garak stands again and stretches. 

Julian groans. "I'm not even through the first chapter and lagging by the minute."

"So you don't dislike interruptions altogether."

"I could deal with a few more actually," Julian says, pushing the hat back to look straight at Garak. His lip curls into an inviting smile, the cue Garak was waiting for; Garak moves over to him and tilts the hat brim up to meet him nose to nose.

"Inside?" Julian asks, but Garak doesn’t budge.

"Pleasant afternoons are as rare here as Starfleet doctors. If I have to pick this one over you—"

"You will." No objection. "Of course."

"How wrong you are," Garak says, pulling Julian up from his chair into an awkward embrace, hands and lips not as sure as he intended. He maneuvers Julian against the house’s wall. "You can take off the hat. As well as—" he tugs at the notch in Julian's shirt collar.

"I've got the idea," Julian says, pulling the shirt over his head in the shade. Garak's hand slips beneath his waistband, nudging it lower, and Julian's mouth breaks from Garak's as he tries—with little success—to hop out of his trousers, underwear, and shoes all at once. Garak kneels and pushes the pool of fabric past Julian's knees, and licks his inner thigh before taking Julian's cock into his mouth.

Julian clutches at Garak's shoulder to steady himself. Garak is methodical now, he remembers how Julian works, and wants to make sure his memory is correct. His hands run up to the small of Julian's back, where his cool fingers find a trail of sweat.

"Please." Julian's voice is hoarse. "Garak."

"With pleasure," Garak says before Julian can finish the word. His thumbs trace the grooved V of Julian's hips, his hands pin him to the wall. Even there, Julian nearly buckles over when he comes, hand gripping Garak's shoulder again. No sound escapes him: nothing like the old Julian, who’d whimper at the slightest touch or provocation. Perhaps he's simply matured, Garak considers, but this silence is unfortunate.

He strokes Julian's thigh as Julian's breathing returns to normal, then looses him and swallows again, careful not to draw Julian's attention, though he does anyway. Julian slides down against the wall, naked, spent, and expectant, and Garak is on his feet and walking toward the garden.

"Don't you—? Garak?" 

"Make it up to me later." Garak's tone is just sharp enough for Julian to doubt that he can.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References to/spoilers for Our Man Bashir and In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light. Vague reference made, also, to the letters that make up A Stitch in Time, but not to their content.

"Damn it!" Julian shouts at the replicator, beeping over and over in error, as if he needed to be told more than once. 

"Julian!" He stops at Garak's voice but doesn't turn around. "Have some tea. Replicate something you know." 

Julian only huffs.

"You're tired, Doctor."

"Everyone's tired."

"And you're _helpful_."

"It's my job," Julian insists.

"You're on leave." Garak takes his hand and Julian tries not to wince.

"I don't want hospitality, Garak."

"You'd do the same. Face it, my dear, your compassion, empathy, kindness, aren't they why you're here?"

"No! But in your letters—damn it, even in our conversations over lunch—"

Garak looks amused: "All those years ago."

"Not that long ago," Julian mumbles.

"Do you want to sweep in, save Elim Garak and all of Cardassia in one visit? According to Federation protocol, of course."

"I want just a fraction of the Garak in your letters."

"Then read the letters."

"I have."

"Oh? I wouldn't have known. " Garak grits his teeth. "That's all until I convince this machine that we're not all barbarians."

Julian stalks off to the washroom and sits on the cold floor, knees to his chest. He hopes that Garak didn't find his underlining and notes on the correspondence Julian brought on a padd, but Garak is such a damned snoop that he probably did. H e’s scribbled so much about Garak as an unreliable narrator of his own memoirs that at this point Julian could produce a scholarly edition. But the letters don't matter. The fact that he so rarely replied doesn’t matter, none of it matters now that he's here, among ruins and pain he can't comprehend. Strength, too. And whatever Garak's hiding at the moment. 

The beeping from the kitchen continues and Julian hears Garak cursing, something about farming, maybe, he's not sure. He ought to leave, go somewhere, sitting here in the dark on a goddamned bathroom floor isn't something good houseguests do. He was stupid to fight a replicator, but turning that into a fight with Garak is dangerous, if only to Julian's self-esteem. 

"You were right," says a voice just outside the room.

"What?" Julian asks, a little afraid to look at Garak.

"The replicator is beyond all hope."

Julian swallows. "I thought."

"May I come in?"

"Yes. Of course."  Garak doesn't sit, but he must realize the awkwardness.

"You look tired, Doctor."

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't," Julian says, indicating his place on the floor. 

"Go to bed." 

"It’s early."

"And you’re tired."

"…Only if you’ll come with me."

"Of course." He extends a hand to Julian, who takes it and rises from the floor. "I thought I'd find you in here investigating," he says as they enter another room. 

Julian looks around. It's small, unassuming, but neater than the main room and what Julian's seen of the kitchen. A bed, large enough if not exactly luxurious. Another door leads to a washroom. There's a shelf on the wall that holds a collection of data rods (books? blackmail material?) and two very old, very ornate folios. One of Ziyal's paintings, a portrait of a Bajoran woman, is on top of a simple chest.

Garak is quiet for a bit. "Those two books are salvages from the State Library. You're already familiar with them, I believe: literature of the late First Republic. I bought them off a looter who would have sold them offworld." He closes his eyes for a moment. "I wish I could have done more."

Julian's gaze moves to the painting.

"It’s by Ziyal, as you must have suspected. A portrait of her mother, Tora Naprem. One of a number she painted; she was never satisfied, never quite felt she could depict her mother's spirit. I told her..." Garak trails off and looks to Julian. "I said it was a marvel. It is, of course, you can tell Naprem was a noble woman. She... gave it to me." Garak pauses, apparently troubled by the gift. "I told Ziyal that Dukat could never hope to capture Tora Naprem's spirit the way she had."

"Did you believe that?" 

Garak smiles a small, inscrutable smile. "What was important was that she believed it." 

_Did she?_  Julian wants to ask, but knows better. 

Julian's name is known to others here, but no one living knows about Tain's little gift of the implant. Garak had never been able to explain Julian’s presence at Enabran Tain’s death, his heart trouble long past a palliative stage then. He had no qualms, dying there in the prison camp, about not giving Elim a full _Shri-tal_. Garak was no true son of Tain nor of Cardassia after all, Tain had made sure of that.  Julian had witnessed him dying, and if Garak allowed him it was because he was no more and no less Cardassian at that moment than Garak was. 

If their relationship failed then, and if, in the end, it does again, Julian Bashir is here now.

"You're still awake?" Julian has turned over to look at Garak with groggy concern.

"And you?"

"Your breathing is irregular."

"I'm truly sorry, but you're not on call here," Garak says.

Julian moves closer, scrutinizing him.

"You were such a fledgling once, you know. On your own for the first time, wide eyes, open ears, mouth—well, how can I put it, eager..." Julian smiles in spite of himself and Garak returns it, briefly. "I do regret approaching you for your own sake." 

Julian is taken aback. "I think I learned a few things," he says, tone lighter than it should be.

"You did, and the whole business... I started it, I encouraged you. Do you remember? Rugal. I sent a child from the only home and family he’d ever known. It was only the beginning," Garak says, ignoring Julian’s look of concern. "But my attraction, my _needs_ —what I was foolish enough to call needs—I should have driven you off the station, or at least tried to when you weren't trying to save my life." He looks at Julian gravely. "And I could have, you know that."

"You'd have to stop sabotaging yourself first."

"If I only had judgment." Garak grits his teeth. "You don't know what I could have done. That's what I should have been telling you, not congratulating the _person_ you were becoming because of me."

 Julian doesn't respond, looking very small lying across from Garak, who strokes his hair away from his forehead. "But there," he murmurs, and Julian pulls away. 

"Elim, you shit," Julian whispers, words hot on Garak's skin. "You absolute shit." Garak doesn't—can't reply. Julian looks up and meets his gaze with red, tired eyes, his guard up. It’s that old expression, what used to be the new one, the same one he’d worn day in and day out all through the war, but it's fading, and he buries his head against Garak's chest, holding his breath. (Julian should remember how to breathe, only, somehow, he can’t.) 

_You thought you had regrets, Elim Garak?_

"Did Ziyal really give you that painting?" Julian asks finally.

"Why?" Julian can feel the apprehension in Garak's voice, pressed this close.

"Did you tell her that Dukat could never capture her mother's spirit that way?" 

"I did tell her that. Yes."

"She believed you?"

"I never said she did, only that believing it was important." 

"Did she give you the painting?"

No response.

"When did you acquire it?"

Garak sighs, disinterested in this interrogation. "What does it matter? It was too late."

Julian presses closer and Garak closes his eyes, his heartbeat a little faster.

"I'll make it up to you. From earlier." Julian's breath is light and warm through the linen tunic Garak' wearing.

More interest, Julian senses, and Garak says, "You’re free to try."

Julian strokes the ridges of Garak's neck, but he doesn't react. "Is this helping?"

"I don't want _help_." Garak has an odd look in his eyes. "Do you remember that Agent Bashir program?"

"When you burglarized it? What part?"

"Do you remember when you plagiarized my speech?"

"Yes."

"And when you shot me for making that speech?"

Julian squints. "I'm not going to shoot you, Garak. God. Is that what you want?"

"Not in a manner of speaking. Do you remember, also the—"

"I have a genetically enhanced memory, Garak, get to the point."

"You know, here—" Garak indicates midway down his neck ridge, "there's quite a little network of capillaries. I did some research after you shot me."

"And?"

"It was then I realized you were a brilliant student of Cardassian anatomy: you knew it would be a painful, visceral but minor wound—and rather arousing. You _knew_ what would stop me in my tracks."  Garak's smile is positively perverse. "I want you to stop me."

Julian's eyes turn crueler, and he makes sure Garak notices as he leans over him, mouth open, teeth bared. It only takes him a second to find the location of the old wound, though it's unscarred. He did a good job with the dermal regenerator.

Garak nods, then gasps before the corners of his mouth turn up in satisfaction.

"Don't smile," Julian says. "That old implant of yours better be off and stay off. Don't you dare smile." He bites down harder and Garak cries out in pain, smiling wider as the pain subsides.

"My dear—" Garak begins, and breaks off as Julian punctures skin. His fingers find Julian's, hovering over the blood flow as if to stop it.

"Garak. Garak, I'm sorry. I can't do this."

"I understand, Doctor," Garak says. 

" _Julian_." His own name chokes him. "Don't call me that."

"My apologies. Julian."

"You don't deserve more pain."

Garak snorts. "You don't know that."

"I can't hurt you."

A silence. "That I will understand, if only from you."

Julian falls back to the bed, nestles his forehead under Garak's chin, opposite the bruise.

"I can get something to heal that."

"No."

"I didn't think so." He traces the periphery of the mark. 

Garak doesn't flinch. He looks at Julian with something like honest need.

"I haven't repaid you yet, have I?" Julian asks.

"Would you?"

Julian swings his impossible long legs out of bed and removes his standard-issue Starfleet undershirt and pants. He climbs back into bed and pushes Garak's sleeping tunic up to kiss his stomach.

"Don't be so gentle, Doctor. It's embarrassing."

"You can't accept gentleness."

"As a matter of fact, no."

"Fine." Julian straddles Garak, thighs rubbing against the scales at his side, one hand slipping between his cock and the slit where Garak's is emerging, his cock rubbing against it between Garak's legs.

Garak's jaw clenches, then Garak's hand meets his, traces the length of Julian's erection with an index finger, and Julian shudders. He moves closer, faster, hips thrusting a little harder each time Garak moans. 

"Elim," Julian hisses, always the surest way, and Garak's body curls up and against his own in climax, the scales on his jaw grazing Julian's neck. There's a hot, sharp pang in him, too, and his come mixes with Garak's in the sheets beneath them. Garak smiles, his eyes closed, and Julian can't take his eyes away from Garak's face like that, dizzy.

"I—I'll clean up," Julian mumbles, beginning to feel too clearheaded, and crawls off in search of a towel. The washroom is cold, and the water he splashes over himself is cold, but he can't find linens. Instead he stands in front of the mirror, stark naked and still not quite himself.

"Come back," Garak says from the other room. Julian returns to find him curling into himself and the bedsheets, almost as though he'd disappear if he could.

"I'm here," Julian says, tucking stray locks of hair behind Garak's ear. He curls up too, across from Garak, their knees touching. "I'm here, Elim. I'm here."

Garak's hand reaches for his in the sheets, their fingers interlocking, Julian tracing new scales over once-familiar tendon and bone. The sounds of an alien summer, a recovering city wash in over their own breathing, Julian's eyes closed, Garak's wide in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Work and chapter titles come from [this Lou Reed/John Cale song](https://youtu.be/9_-naUK3X6w?t=2181).


End file.
